


The Gravity of the Situation

by DragonflyPrince



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, M/M, Mortality, Oral Sex, Seduction, little bit of plot, only angst towards the end though, speculation on the meaning of being human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyPrince/pseuds/DragonflyPrince
Summary: Temporarily trapped in a mortal body, Zeus has none of his godly powers to aid him in the seduction of the young man he has just met in a bar. It turns out sex in a fully human form is an entirely different experience.
Relationships: Zeus/Original Male Character
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

What surprised him more than anything else was gravity. It tugged at him constantly, put weight and age into his limbs. Age – another thing he had never previously considered. He could feel every part of himself dragging downwards: arms hanging, feet falling, head inclined to tip and loll. Even his jaw wanted to droop, to say nothing of the surprisingly pendulous mass between his thighs. Gravity had a lot to answer for.

And age? That was almost worse. He had never troubled about his age before – a few millennia here and there, what did it matter? He presented his human aspect, wherever possible, a little older perhaps than most of his family. After all, he was supposed to be the leader. Perhaps he had aimed for somewhere around his forties, though always and forever handsome. It simply hadn’t mattered, before.

Now, he was aware of aches and creaks. Not all the time, no, he was not as decrepit as all that but when he got up in the morning, he felt his neck complaining. If he sat too long, his back groaned upon standing. He got tired and sleepy just after lunch. He had never been tired before in his life.

Zeus, King of the Gods, Lord of Olympus, God of the Sky, was annoyed. Mortality was, he was sure, to be a short-lived curse. Even the most powerful goddess couldn’t strip him of his godhood so completely. But it had been nearly a week now and it was starting to wear on him.

First, there had been the gravity. That had been unexpected. Who knew it was so difficult to walk when the earth tried to cling to the soles of your feet? Of course, he had regained his usual grace with a little practice but the shock of it had unnerved him and left him utterly unready to deal with hunger. He had heard the humans talk about hunger before and he had thought he understood it. He had not. It twisted in his gut like a knife, writhed like a living thing, festered.

Eating was another revelation. Of course, he had eaten human foods before and found them pleasant enough but this was something else. Taste was a whole new thing with a mammalian mouth. He could pick up on every subtlety. The intensity of flavour had nearly knocked him over.

The same was true of the noises. And the smells. Of course, his hearing had always been perfect but it had been perfect by choice. If he didn’t want to hear a sound, he could just shut it out. It wasn’t important. These ears didn’t seem to have that reflex. Nor did this nose. All in all, Zeus was struggling to understand how the humans lived in this constant cacophony, how they weren’t always overwhelmed and ready to drop down and weep.

There had been money, of course, because Zeus was Zeus and there are limits but even so the hotel room in which he was staying was its own set of confusions. Sleep had been bad enough but there were other little details. Electric lighting, for example. Obviously Zeus knew what it was but it wasn’t as if they used it on Olympus. That whole business of getting up from your seat when you wanted to fetch something rather than just having it appear, or having Ganymede bring it to him.

Dear Ganymede. How he missed him already. And Hera, of course. In fact, Zeus missed Hera rather more than he cared to admit. There was something so reassuring, so steadying, about how she always found something to complain about. If she had been in that hotel, she would have had everybody dancing to her tune within five minutes. She would have grabbed confusion by the scruff of the neck and hammered it on the anvil of surprise into pure, razor-sharp anger. Little as he would ever be willing to accept it, Zeus simply did not have her way with people.

When Zeus had gone to ask for an extra pillow, somebody had frowned at him. They would never have frowned at Hera. He was certain of that.

This body, so full of its own mortality, was full of wants, full of feelings, full of movement. How did humans stand it? Could they feel it, this sickening uncertainty, the precariousness of their own function? Did they know that in the red-velvet plains of tissue, the twisting, twining veins, the throbbing heart and firing brain, they could be harbouring the seeds of their own destruction? Could they feel how breakable they were, the fragility in every brittle bone, in the softness of their skin, in how easily their muscles tore?

When Zeus had first taken that delicate body out into the streets, he had been almost too afraid to move. If a car were to hit it, it would shatter. If it were to fall, or to be knocked, or cut, or sliced, it might end right there and then. It was such a precious thing. How could it live more than a day? But the humans managed with them and Zeus had contrived to get by.

His body wanted so much. It wanted food, which it told him painfully, and water, which it also expressed in pain. It wanted rest or movement or care of some kind and the only way it seemed to communicate this was through pain. Why had they never designed another system? A change in the skin tone, perhaps, or a series of carefully-coded freckles? Why did it have to be pain?

And so Zeus had fed it and watered it – and even water had nearly killed him, that dull nothing that was water turned out to be full of flavour and texture in the human mouth, full of cold softness sliding down his oesophagus, pooling in his stomach. Still it wanted. Every few hours, it wanted something more, something else, something different.

And now he’d thought about Ganymede, it wanted something very specific indeed. That had been happening a lot. Zeus had never thought about what it felt like for humans, to crave intimacy, to crave the act of love-making and the sweet relief of orgasm. He only knew that they did. It turned out that what for him had always been an emotional state was for humans, once again, a matter of that aggravating body. It crawled under his skin like ants. His very flesh seemed to be crying out to be touched.

Where did humans go to meet somebody? Zeus was going to have to find someone. He was still handsome, still experienced, still a god, dammit. He was going to get his own way, and he was going to get laid tonight.

*

The boy was beautiful. He looked like the kind of boy they used to have, back in the old Arcadian days: all cornflower eyes, dark hair, steady features, lithesome grace. Except, of course, he wasn’t a boy – Zeus had to remember that. Humans never used to mind but as the centuries passed, they became less and less accepting of being called boys when they were clearly in their twenties.

This young man, this lovely thing, watched Zeus through lowered lashes, a hint of a smile playing about his mouth. It was sarcastic, a touch knowing, and not at all Zeus’s usual type. He liked beginners, innocents, novices to the art. He liked to introduce them, to lead them his way. But desperate times call for desperate measures and his human body was in itself a desperate time.

“What’s your name?” Zeus asked, letting his gaze roam the young man’s body, blatantly exploring.

“Ned.”

“I’m Zeus.”

To his astonishment, the young man laughed. The announcement had never occasioned mirth before.

“Were your parents academics or just eccentric?” Ned asked, and Zeus liked what amusement did to his face, liked how it lifted the cynicism and made, yes, made a beginner of him.

“Eccentric,” Zeus said truthfully. “My father ate my siblings.”

Ned laughed again, which Zeus thought rather harsh to tell the truth. “I’ve never understood how he was convinced to eat a rock instead. You would think the taste gave it away.”

It seemed to Zeus that they were getting away from the point.

“Are you here alone?” He placed one hand, casually, on the boy’s slender knee.

Ned batted him away impatiently. “It’s just that you’d think there would be quite a difference between a baby and a rock. Unless gods aren’t made of flesh, which opens up a whole can of worms. Do you think gods are made of stone?”

“No,” Zeus said firmly. “They most certainly are not.”

The truth of that was losing no time in making itself known to him.

“No, but it would be an interesting premise,” Ned said thoughtfully. “And explain a little more about the succession from Earth and Sky into god. I know they probably don’t have genetics like we do but –”

“He couldn’t tell the difference because he didn’t chew,” Zeus explained, seeing that they were going to get nowhere unless this point was addressed. “He just swallowed it down whole. He never had a chance to taste it. Or to savour the texture,” he added, guessing at once where Ned’s mind was going.

The young man nodded. “It still seems like a silly thing to do, not to even look at what you were eating, especially when so much was riding on it.”

“He wasn’t very bright,” Zeus retorted, and Ned grinned. “You, however, are very bright.”

He tried to put his hand on Ned’s knee again but it did not have the usual effect. In the past, by this point in the conversation, the person he had chosen to seduce would be blushing and bashful, trying not to meet his eye. Ned simply rolled those gorgeous eyes and said, “If you want to feel me up, you can buy me a drink.”

It was so disconcerting that Zeus almost left to seek easier prey but, well, Ned was beautiful and it had been so long since he had had to try. There had been people with sworn vows, of course, who had resisted him and others of that ilk but never those that seemed so casually immune to his advances.

He signalled to the barman. “Another drink for my friend, here. And a whiskey for myself.”

“Old man,” Ned muttered, which stung because it was so close to how he felt.

“What do you do, Ned?” Zeus asked, revelling in the new experience of not already knowing.

Ned looked at him sideways, as though trying to figure him out. “You need to come up with some better lines than that. You should ask that before you put your hand on my knee. Have you never done this before?”

For a moment, Zeus was speechless. “Of course I’ve done this before!”

“How long has it been?” Ned’s eyes roamed over his face and well-cut suit, frankly assessing. “Let me guess…you’re recently divorced. Married your high school sweetheart, only just dared to admit you prefer men. You haven’t had to pick anyone up since you were a teenager.”

Zeus’s jaw dropped. “Who do you think you are?”

“Ned.” The young man grinned, a reckless light in his eyes. “Tell me, am I wrong?”

“Very wrong!” Zeus wanted to wring his slender neck. “I have been married, it’s true – but I’m not divorced.”

“Ah.” Ned firmly caught Zeus’s hand in his and pulled it from his knee. “Sorry. I don’t do extramarital affairs. It’s far too messy. People come and throw things at you.”

He made to push Zeus’s hand away but Zeus held on, gently curving his fingers round. He brushed his thumb against Ned’s palm and watched in satisfaction as the blood rose to his face, just a little. With his godly ears, he knew, he would have heard his heartbeat quicken. He nearly swooned himself. Mortal flesh against mortal flesh – that was something wholly new. He could feel the unevenness and uncertainty of Ned’s skin, feel every tiny hair, every shift, the bird-like reeds of bones beneath the surface.

“We’re estranged,” Zeus lied, not wanting to go into details. “There have been problems getting the divorce.”

“You don’t live together?”

Now Ned’s eyes were finally lowered, watching through the eyelashes again, those splendid dark scimitars, his voice just a trace less flippant.

“She lives in Greece.”

True, at least on a basic level.

“Oh. Well then. That’s different.”

Ned’s fingers wrapped securely around Zeus’s, brushing lightly over his knuckles. Zeus felt something tighten in his stomach, or just below. How did humans ever get beyond this? He could have sat for hours marvelling at Ned’s hand, at the callouses that marked his palm, the soft lines for a palmist to read, the slender smoothness of his fingers, the starkness with which the veins and bones stood out, the perfect artistry of it. He wanted to hold it, to kiss it. He was going mad with longing over a young man’s hand.

And Ned knew it. When his gaze flickered up to the smug little smile lurking in the corners of Ned’s eyes, he knew that Ned knew it.

There was only one way to respond to that. Zeus lifted Ned’s hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips over the knuckles, just once. He nearly died. The tightness down below turned to heat. How dare this man’s skin be so soft? And how dare his eyes move like that, his tongue flicker out to wet his lower lip like that, his cheeks blush just faintly, almost too faint to see? It was obscene. The boy was obscene.

Zeus leaned forward, close enough for his breath to brush Ned’s ear when he whispered, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Ned shivered. Zeus felt much the same way. This close, he could feel the heat radiating off of him. He could smell him too – the musk of his perfume, the clinical soap below, the sweat underneath all of that. His hair too – so soft, just begging to be twined round controlling fingers – smelled softly of shampoo, of apple and something just a touch chemical.

“Are you sniffing me?” Ned enquired, but not without a slight shake to his voice that consoled Zeus for the worst of the embarrassment.

“You smell so good,” Zeus mumbled, and was rewarded with another shiver.

“That’s creepy,” Ned responded, but he didn’t pull away. “And yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I want to get out of here.”

Aha. So Zeus still had some of his old touch after all.

*

It turned out that they were only two streets from Ned’s flat. Zeus let himself be led there, walking by Ned’s side, not touching him in a way that was somehow more maddening, more consuming, than touching him could have been. All he wanted was to grab the man, shove him up against a wall and…and what? Zeus had no idea what he wanted to do to him. Everything, eventually, but where to begin?

All the same, it took him by surprise when Ned stopped half-way up the stairwell and turned, one step above him, to kiss him. Zeus had no time to prepare himself before Ned’s hands were on his shoulders, their lips colliding. Zeus felt it all the way down to his toes. He kissed back and this, yes, this he was still good at. He took control back in an instant, placed his hands at Ned’s waist (so narrow, so breakable, surely somebody could snap him in half) and kissed with all the control he could muster. Ned sighed softly against his lips and the sound went straight to his cock.

A moment to hold it together, to teeter on the edge, and Zeus gently guided him over, slid his tongue between his lips. Ned parted for him willingly and Zeus tasted the soft velvet of his tongue, the warm inside of his mouth. It was heady as wine, rich as brandy. He sucked rather more forcefully than he had intended on the young man’s lip and Ned buckled against him, hips and chest pressed flush to him. Zeus clutched at him, caught off guard, and for a moment the gentle kiss became a desperate tangle.

Ned pulled away with a gasp. “Come on. I’ll get complaints from the neighbours.”

Zeus growled as Ned stepped smartly out of his grasp but the young man only took a moment to grab his hand and they were hurrying up the stairs, almost running. It took all of Zeus’s control not to grab Ned from behind as he bent over slightly, fumbling with the key, but then the door was open, and closed behind them, and there was nothing but Ned in his arms, the feel of him, so warm and so fragile, pressed up against Zeus was an eagerness that should not be allowed.

Zeus fell back against the door, pulled Ned closer, relished in the sweetness of his mouth. His fists curled in his shirt. Ned’s hands cradled his neck, snaked higher to drag with agonising slowness through his hair. Zeus moaned as his fingernails bit his scalp.

“How long has it been since somebody touched you?” Ned asked hoarsely, with the edge of a laugh.

“Too long.”

Zeus caught his mouth again before he could say anything more. There were other things he should be doing with it but he wasn’t ready to stop kissing yet. He wanted to get everything he could out of this experience before he moved on. It was only when Ned rocked against him and Zeus felt the hard urgency of his lover’s cock that he felt capable of letting him go. There were new priorities.

“Bedroom,” Ned choked out before it crumbled into a groan as Zeus’s teeth found the fluttering pulse of his neck.

Zeus lingered, let his teeth scrape gently, his tongue touch, let his lips draw in and suck. Ned clung to him and let out a soft little sound, so vulnerable that Zeus thought he had succeeded. Ned was his now, his innocent to seduce.

That all went away as one of Ned’s hands slid between all at once between them and gripped, with unnecessary force, Zeus’s erection through the front of his suit. He was painfully hard and that touch made him gasp, his toes curling slightly in his polished dress shoes.

“If you want me to deal with that,” Ned managed, his voice cracking, “you’ll come into the bedroom. Now.”

Zeus was helpless to disobey. He let himself be led through into a small room. His human senses picked up on everything – colours, disarray, scents of all kinds – but they vanished from his mind as soon as they arrived. This was how humans shut off their senses – by overwhelming them with something else.

And something else was certainly overwhelming, for no sooner were they through the door than Ned reached down and tugged his shirt up over his head. Zeus stared, transfixed, as the man wriggled it over his head and tossed it into the corner, running his hands back through his ruffled hair. Ned glanced at him sheepishly, and smirked when he saw his face.

“Like what you see?” he teased.

“You are exquisite,” Zeus said.

It was true but it was too much. Too sincere. People didn’t talk like that anymore, not even to young men with such delicate throats, such soft skin, such perfect planes to their stomach. A blush stole across Ned’s body, rising from his waist, spreading up to his face.

“Come here, old man.”

Ned opened his arms. Zeus scarcely registered stepping forward. He caught Ned around the waist and lifted him nearly off his feet and, oh, yes, the skin of his back was soft as silk under his roving fingers. He traced the vertebrae of his spine, found every shape of every muscle, and kissed, and kissed, and kissed, till Ned was gasping against him. Ned’s own hands stole down to Zeus’s waist, tugged his shirt free from his waistband, and crept upwards. Zeus moaned in surprise as deft hands began to stroke and caress his lower back. Without thinking about it, he tipped Ned backwards.

Ned fell with a yelp onto the bed and Zeus dropped on top of him, pushing him into the mattress, capturing his lower lip in his teeth for one sharp bite before letting his mouth slide down, flutter along his jawline, bite and draw at his neck. Ned whimpered as Zeus’s explorations brought his hands around the thin skin below his ribcage, up over where his heartbeat raged, frantic as a war drum, hammering out a deranged tattoo. Zeus skimmed his thumb over one pink nipple. Ned squirmed.

“Do you like that?” Zeus murmured, tracing circles. “Does that feel good?”

“God, yes,” Ned gasped out, grabbing handfuls of Zeus’s shirt. “Stop being so careful. You’re torturing me.”

Zeus lowered his head and licked a line across Ned’s nipple. The man’s back arched off the bed. His pelvis collided with Zeus’s and the god thought for an awful moment that he might lose it there and then. But he drew Ned’s nipple into his mouth, caressed it with his tongue, dragged his teeth across it with agonising care.

The need was growing in him now, the want, the desperation. Every part of his body was screaming just to grab and take. Just to have. _Please_. _Now_.

Zeus sat back on his haunches and tugged desperately at his own shirt, trying to escape its suddenly-choking collar. His hands fumbled and struggled with the unfamiliar fastenings.

“Damn buttons,” he growled.

“Here. Let me.”

Ned sat up, still between his legs, and pushed Zeus’s shaking hands out of the way. Deftly, gracefully, he undid the buttons one by one, pushing the expensive fabric of the shirt aside to rest his palms flat against Zeus’s chest. Zeus wondered if he would know when he was having a heart attack. It certainly felt like one, with his heart careening against his ribcage, pounding fit to burst. Ned’s hands dragged upwards to push his shirt from his shoulders, then slid back down his arms, fondling the iron curves of his biceps. The blood rushed to Ned’s face.

“Like what you see?” Zeus mimicked his tone from earlier.

Ned looked up at him and there was no trace of smugness about him now. “You look good for your age,” he said hoarsely, but Zeus was not fooled.

Zeus pulled the boy closer to him, crushed him against his chest. Ned spread his legs, helping himself into Zeus’s lap, and that was a very bad move because the agony had been almost ignorable but it came back with a vengeance now with only a few thin layers of fabric between them. Ned shifted and grinned, his cockiness back.

“Let me take care of that,” he whispered.

He swung himself off the bed and dragged Zeus towards him. There was no trace of uncertainty, no shake of his hands, as he undid the buttons of Zeus’s trousers and slid them off his hips. His hand roved up Zeus’s thigh, brushed ever-so-lightly against the straining hardness of his erection. Zeus groaned, his head falling backwards.

“Please,” he begged, he who had never begged for anything in his life. “I need it.”

“You need it?” Ned enquired politely. “Or you need me?”

The boy was begging to be slapped, talking like that. Zeus fought to look him in the eye.

“I need you.”

And then all at once Ned’s hand was inside his boxers, stroking up and down his cock. Zeus moaned, thrust uselessly and entirely accidentally against him. Ned laughed and rubbed his thumb over the tip.

“Lift your hips,” he said softly.

Zeus obeyed. Ned slipped his boxers down and dragged them, painstakingly slowly, off completely. His eyes remained fixed on Zeus’s cock, now bobbing against his stomach, swollen, the head already weeping. For a moment he stared and Zeus thought, with a hint of distant satisfaction, that he looked daunted. Then Ned dropped to his knees and, with no warning at all, ran his tongue up the underside of Zeus’s cock.

The sound Zeus made was filthier than any sound he had ever made. He sounded debauched, desperate – vulnerable. He sounded like his lovers usually sounded when he had his wicked way with them. He sounded completely and utterly seduced.

“That’s right,” Ned whispered, tonguing the slit at the tip in a way that made Zeus want to die. “Keep making those noises.”

Then, all at once, he swallowed him whole. Zeus cried out, his hips bucking, as Ned pressed in closer, his tongue circling, until Zeus’s cock hit the back of his throat and he was forced to stop for a moment, panting harshly through his nose, his fingertips tracing idly patterns around Zeus’s inner thigh.

For one terrible, embarrassing moment Zeus thought he might end it all right then, as though this was his first time, but he mastered himself. He looked down and met Ned’s gaze, that suddenly vulnerable look in his blue eyes, his pretty mouth stretched wide. It was too much. Almost without meaning too, Zeus thrust.

Ned’s eyes rolled back a little but he did not object. Zeus did what he had so longed to do and tangled his fingers into that soft dark hair. He gripped tight. Then there was nothing he could do, no restraint he had left to give. He thrust in and out, and Ned let him, knelt there with his throat loose, even as he choked, even as tears welled up in his eyes. Zeus fucked that too-smart cynical mouth like it had been made for him. Ned rallied enough to move his tongue, add a punishing edge to the wet heat of his throat.

The pleasure spread through Zeus in waves, sang through him, tore at his brain. He wanted to fuck Ned like this forever, till the man could never speak again. But he couldn’t. The tension was building, the heat too much, the world overwhelming. Zeus felt it before it came but he could not stop the cry that escaped his lips, toes curling, fists tightening in Ned’s hair, head thrown back of its own accord. His seed spilled down Ned’s throat and still the boy allowed it, meek and unresisting, as Zeus fucked his way through the orgasm, fucked until the last of the pleasure was fizzing like champagne in his blood and he wanted to sleep for a thousand years.

At last, he drew back. His softening cock slipped out of the man’s mouth with a grotesque pop. Zeus fought not to collapse back, sink into a swoon on the bed. That would be too embarrassing after his abysmal stamina.

Strings of saliva and semen trailed out of Ned’s open mouth as he fought for breath, wiped the tears from his eyes. He licked his lips clean, lapped the last of it from his chin, and suddenly all thoughts of sleep disappeared. He couldn’t – he simply couldn’t – when this man was here, this dangerous man looking so perfect and licking Zeus’s cum from his face.

“You lovely thing,” he crooned, reaching out to stroke his cheek, cup his chin. “You perfect boy.”

Ned got shakily to his feet, straddled his lap, and kissed him. It was open-mouthed and sloppy, and Zeus could taste himself, salty and bitter, on his tongue. His cock still pressed, hard and hot, against Zeus’s stomach. He wasn’t finished. Of course he wasn’t – that sort of luxury only occurred when he was on fine godly form. But the boy had done sterling service. He deserved a reward.

“How was that for you?” Ned asked, his voice trembling a little, croaking around the edges.

“Beautiful boy,” Zeus whispered, tipping Ned back down onto the bed.

Ned sighed happily as Zeus fumbled to undo his jeans, fought to drag them down over his thighs. Why were they so tight? Who designed this? It killed the moment. No wonder seduction was so hard for humans. It was impossible to be smooth when wrestling with these things.

Ned shoved him away laughing and tugged the damnable jeans off himself, chucking them across the room. He lay back and spread his legs, coyly averting his gaze. It was so practiced, so pronounced, that Zeus would have laughed at him had he not been so fixated on the cock resting against his stomach.

“Oh, you lovely thing,” Zeus murmured. “δυσπέλαστος κόρος.”

Reverentially, he ran the flat of his palm up the inner line of Ned’s thigh. The man lay still and patient, his breath hitching now and then, his chest rising and falling rapidly, as Zeus explored anew. Did humans used to be different, or had he simply never noticed the _details_? Ned was all details: a slight discolouration here, something pale like an old scar there, dark hairs untidy, the freckle in the join between hip and thigh that Zeus could not resist the temptation to lean over and kiss.

Ned sighed throatily and the tension seemed to be leeching out of him. All that frantic energy bled away as Zeus soothed over his thighs, his stomach, splayed his hands flat over his hips. At last, he felt as though he were calm enough to face it and ran his hand very gently up Ned’s cock, just once, from base to tip.

Ned moaned and bucked his hips. “God, Zeus, I’m begging you here.”

The skin was unbearably soft, the whole thing so agonisingly fragile that Zeus had a sudden terror that he would damage him. But his next touch was more confident and Ned moaned again, shifting his weight, pressing forward. His head fell backwards against the pillow, fingers curling to grip the sheets. Zeus curved his hand on the upstroke and Ned whimpered pitifully.

Zeus was already hard. Apparently his mortal body still retained some ability to recover. Thank goodness – he’d been dreading having to face his own unfamiliar impotence. But the need was growing again, almost as desperate as before but slower, deeper. He didn’t want to play games with Ned anymore. He wanted to take him, have him, break him if he had to.

“Turn over,” he managed, his mouth suddenly dry.

Ned shook his head, pushing himself half-way up to sitting. “No. I…I don’t do it like that. Not where I can’t see you.”

Oh, he just had to be inconvenient, didn’t he? Very well. Zeus grabbed Ned’s ankles and unceremoniously pushed them up until the boy was all but bent in half, outrageously exposed. Everything was on display. Zeus thought he might like to have such a view rendered in marble, so that he could appreciate it at his leisure.

“Top drawer,” Ned said, after a few silent moments had passed.

“What?”

“Top drawer,” Ned repeated, biting his lip to stifle a moan as Zeus’s hand cupped his balls. “Lube. Condoms. All that stuff.”

Zeus stared at him uncomprehendingly. “You…what?”

“For god’s sake, are you going to fuck me or not?”

It finally clicked. Ned was human – _and so was Zeus_. For the time being at least. The usual technique of just vaguely willing his lover to be ready for him was not going to work here. He was going to have to help him, the way mortals did for each other. Did he even know what it was mortals did for each other?

“I’ve never used a condom,” he said uncertainly.

“Yeah?” Ned choked out, resting back on his elbows. “I’d take a signed notice from your doctor saying you’re clean but otherwise it’s rubber or nothing, and please, god, say you’ll wear the damn thing because I don’t think I can take this messing around much longer.”

That was that then. Nobody had ever called Zeus unchivalrous. He couldn’t possibly leave his lover in such a state. He leaned over and pulled open the top drawer of the bedside table. It turned out to contain a great many more things than just those he required, and even with the urgency of the situation Zeus found himself somewhat distracted by the general debris of a human life.

“Jesus Christ,” Ned muttered, shoving him back out of the way. “Get it together, old man.”

He pulled out a small blue bottle and a paper box, and chucked them at Zeus’s head. Zeus managed to get it together enough to thumb open the box and shake out a scattering of foil packets across the bed. That seemed straightforward. Presumably he had to open the package. The condom must be inside. Or maybe the condom was the foil and it folded out?

“Here.”

Ned’s voice had softened, turned unsettlingly tender. He sat up, folding his legs underneath him once more, and selected a packet. Neatly, he dragged it open and removed what looked, to Zeus, like a limp rubber teat.

“That’s what they are?”

“I am horrified at the thought of your education,” was all Ned replied. “Do you know how to put it on?”

Zeus did not. Ned huffed slightly and rolled his eyes but there was something almost kind in the way he showed, with an over-the-top showman’s flourish, how to pinch the tip and roll the rubber gently up the cock until it rested securely at the base. It felt strange to Zeus, a constant but not oppressive containment, like the awareness of a ring’s weight or a hat’s circumference.

“There.” Ned flopped backwards and kicked his legs up into the air, exposing everything to view again. “Now I’m all yours.”

No time to think. No time to dwell on the mysteries of the human condition. Ned was lying there waiting for him and it would have been entirely beyond Zeus’s power not to oblige. He gave himself a moment to prepare though, to run his eyes over thigh and arse, the tight puckered anus that he was going to fuck. By all Olympus, how was he to manage that? Were they all so small before he willed them open for him? He had never thought about it before.

Tentatively, he ran a fingertip across the hole. Ned whimpered and his hips jerked, just slightly.

“Do you need me to show you?” he croaked, his voice breaking like a shipwreck.

“No.” Zeus reached for the bottle of lube. “Just wait.”

He tipped a slightly too generous helping onto his hands. With more confidence than he felt, he traced a finger around the hole. Ned moaned quietly and tightened his grip on the sheets. Encouraged, Zeus pressed the tip of one finger in.

“That’s it,” Ned whispered. “Just like that.”

Zeus pushed forward, impaled him up to the knuckle. Ned gasped, every muscle tightening, before he relaxed again. He was so tight Zeus thought his finger might be crushed. He pressed as deep as he could and withdrew. Ned made a noise Zeus had never heard from a human before, deep in the throat and hungry.

From there, it suddenly seemed obvious. He slid a second finger in and reached deep, testing the hot slick walls, searching out secrets. He brushed over something he only half-knew existed and Ned cried out, thighs quivering, muscles in his neck standing out stark.

“There?” Zeus asked, stroking again. “Just there?”

“Yes! God, yes!” Ned squirmed beneath him. “Please!”

Praise Prometheus and his indulgent design work. Zeus massaged the prostate, worked the pad of his finger over it, till Ned was all but sobbing, his cock weeping. It was tempting to make him come just like this, undo him completely, but it would hurt too much.

Zeus sat back, desperate, hands almost shaking as he doused his cock in more of the lubricant. Ned’s hole flexed around empty space, like it was searching for him. Without enough warning or enough care, Zeus levelled himself and thrust. Ned screamed, fists clenching, eyes screwing closed, his whole body clamping down so tight that Zeus was almost forced out of him. Zeus groaned, grunted, buried himself deep until his balls rested against flesh.

Ned relaxed beneath him suddenly, falling loose and open. His eyes opened slowly, swimming with tears.

“Don’t stop now,” he choked out. “Don’t – oh!”

Zeus thrust. Once he had started, there was no stopping. He gripped Ned’s hips tight enough to bruise. The young man’s arms came up, grabbing at him, fingernails scratching, and all dignity was lost in the fumbling, desperate, needy madness of it. Ned whimpered and shouted with every thrust, tears drying fast, lips parting, pupils blown so wide they seemed fit to swallow planets. Zeus kissed him, bit him, tore at him clumsily, and thrust again and again, and again.

Ned came. His pretty mouth opened wide in a soundless shout. His head fell back. He tightened around Zeus like a vice. Cum spilled, hot and sticky, across both of their stomachs. Zeus captured that mouth in his. He aimed to kiss but mostly he just tore, all teeth, clumsy and bruising. His resolve gave out and he came again, filling Ned up, emptying himself into him. Ned fell back limply on the bed, eyes half-closed, head turned profile, the violence with which his chest rose and fell the only indication that he wasn’t dead.

It took Zeus some minutes to even get it together enough to pull out of him. He mumbled nonsense, showered down kisses, stroked gently through sweat-slick hair. Ned’s breathing gradually steadied and his pupils shrank, like he was coming back to life. When Zeus managed to regain enough muscle control to withdraw and crawl up the bed, he pulled the boy into his arms and cradled him, crushed him to his chest.

“Good boy,” he murmured. “Beautiful boy, you perfect thing, you did so well.”

Ned curled closer into him, clutching at him and pressing in. He turned his head just enough to plant a delicate kiss, with chapped lips, on Zeus’s chest. Then he lay his head down and shuddered like he was letting something deep and terrible go.

“Are you alright?” Zeus asked, after he had judged long enough had passed.

It often took them like this, the boys he seduced. He hadn’t expected it to happen this time, not with a human body and a man as smart-mouthed and apparently immune as this Ned character.

Ned’s fingers traced idle patterns over sweat-clammy skin. “I’m perfect.”

“Yes. You are.”

Ned pushed himself away just far enough to roll his eyes up to Zeus’s face. Some of that knowing smugness was back. “And you? Are you alright?”

“Completely.” Zeus pulled him back again, nestled him firmly against his side. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“This is my apartment – obviously I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh.” Zeus took a moment to run that one through his understanding of mortal culture. “Should I leave?”

“Not yet. If you don’t want to.”

Zeus did not want to. His body felt too relaxed, heavy. He couldn’t imagine standing up. He let his eyes close. His heart, that fragile terrible thing that always seemed one second from failure, beat a steady rhythm, lulling like the motion of a ship, in time with Ned’s breath. For a second, the frantic spinning of the universe stood still.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is less sex and more angst. The whole tone changes. I don't know - I wrote the first chapter before midnight and this one afterwards. This always happens when I do that. Basically, if you don't want any actual plot to show up on the scene, don't bother with this one. It's not worth it.

Zeus felt clammy. His head hurt. His mouth was so dry it felt as though something had crawled in and died. This was the worst he had ever felt in his life, which was particularly awful because he technically was not even alive. Mortality had a lot to answer for.

He forced his eyes open and stared blankly up at the ceiling. It needed repainting. There were cracks, and a damp patch over by the wall. The room smelled rather too strongly of sweat. Somebody ought to open a window.

It was only at that point that Zeus realised the presence at his side was absent. His arm was still outflung where Ned had burrowed close to him but the sheets were crumpled and bare. No young man. Zeus forced himself up onto his elbows, even as that apparently unstoppable crick in his neck snapped its complaints.

Ned’s bedroom was far worse in the light of day, undistracted by his dazzling presence. There were heaps of laundry strewn across the floor, and what seemed to be an open packet of individually-wrapped cakes sitting over near the door next to a pair of bright yellow shoes. There was a desk pushed up against a wall, though that seemed to be too optimistic a word for a rickety table weighted down by papers and empty soda cans. The walls were marked, the plaster cracked. It was a dismal little place for what had clearly been a born prince.

As if on cue, Ned entered. A threadbare towel was slung around him, barely covering the essentials, and for a second Zeus had a vision of him back in the old days, dressed like they used to dress before all this nonsense with trousers came into fashion. His hair was damp, half plastered to his scalp and the other half sticking up in disordered spikes.

“Morning. Want coffee?”

Zeus stared at him, struck dumb. Ned turned to look at him properly, a crooked little grin twisting that mouth.

“Coffee?” he repeated. “It’s a drink. You know? Caffeine? Milk? Do you want one?”

“Oh. Oh!” Zeus shook himself back to reality. “What kind?”

“The cheapest instant money can buy.” Ned read his expression. “Yeah, well, you know how it is. You want fancy, you can get your own.”

He turned back to the upright plywood box that somebody had apparently thought it was acceptable to market as a wardrobe. The towel dropped away completely. If Zeus’s mouth had been dry before, that was nothing to what it was now. He hadn’t had a chance to truly see, to admire…

There was artistry in the smooth swoop of Ned’s spine and the delicate arch of his gluteus muscles. The fan of his back spread out from narrow shoulder blades, so abrupt and so fragile that they looked as though they would break through the skin at any moment and become wings. Had he really brutalised that lovely arse last night? Had he dared mark those hips with, yes, there they were, the faint blue tracings of early bruises?

“Don’t move,” he said hoarsely.

Ned disobeyed him immediately, turning on his heel and planting a hand firmly on his hip. His posture was that of a cover model. His smile was suddenly reckless, arrogant.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were in such a delicate state.”

Zeus didn’t say anything. He only looked, and Ned’s smile faltered for a second, the tension in his posture sagging so minutely that you might not have noticed it if you were watching with any less intensity than Zeus was.

“You alright?” he asked abruptly. “You look kind of pale.”

“You are the loveliest thing I have seen in a thousand years,” Zeus said before he could stop himself.

“Yeah? What were you doing a thousand years ago?”

Zeus didn’t answer. He rolled off the bed and staggered for a moment on unsteady feet. His body felt strange, clammy in places, unclean, with unfamiliar muscles overworked. He felt as he had never felt before: as though he were too dirty, too polluted, too unworthy, to sully the purity of this freshly-washed being, smelling of apple blossom and soap. But that did not stop him, and Ned kissed him back hungrily, as though he didn’t even notice.

“You are…”

But Zeus couldn’t think of the words so he settled for kissing again, and sliding a hand between them to find Ned’s cock where it hung. The skin was so soft, still so soft, but it rose immediately at his touch. Ned made a startled little sound, almost embarrassed, and rose onto his tiptoes.

“You –” Zeus kissed him again, as though that would cover up the emotion he was feeling and had no name for, the desperate pressure around his heart and tightening in his lungs that seemed dangerously like it might kill him. “Pretty –”

He stroked frantically, too eagerly, working Ned up into a desperate heat. The man moaned and buried his head into Zeus’s neck as Zeus hooked his fingers behind his balls, pressed for a moment too firmly into the sensitive part of the perineum.

“ _Oh_ …” Ned bit gently on his pulse. “Zeus, I…”

“That’s it,” Zeus muttered, teething the lobe of his ear. “That’s right.”

Ned was so hard in his hand now, straining against him. His whole body quivered, thighs trembling, shivering like a leaf on a storm-blown tree. Zeus pushed him onto the bed, forced him to sit before his knees gave out completely. Ned clung to him, kissed him. His hands slid down to Zeus’s waist, but Zeus grabbed them and pulled them out of the way. He couldn’t – he just couldn’t. For a moment, he needed Ned to just _accept_ …

He stood back for a second, grip still firm on his lover’s cock, and stared at him. Ned looked up, tousle-haired and flush-faced, chapped lips parted, eyelids lowered, legs spread as wide as they would go for him, without question, without argument. Zeus did what he had never done before; he knelt and worshipped a mortal man.

Ned’s cock tasted of flesh and salt beneath his tongue. His thighs shuddered, spasmed almost, under his hands. Zeus gently licked the length from base to tip, and circled the slit at the top. Precum leaked into his mouth, startlingly bitter, unpleasant enough to almost make him change his mind. But Ned let out a soft breathy moan and ran his hands through Zeus’s hair. Such encouragement was too much to ignore.

Zeus opened his mouth wide and gently took Ned’s cock inside. He worked slowly, half an inch at a time, swallowing him down. Who knew this was so uncomfortable, that the angle could be so awkward, that the fullness could be so frightening? He felt as though he would suffocate, but Ned’s grip on his hair tightened, tugging at his scalp, and Zeus pressed forward until Ned’s cock hit something in the back of his throat and his whole body lurched in protest.

“Sssh,” Ned whispered, his voice unsteady. “It’s okay.”

Zeus steadied his breathing, sharp, through his nose, and blinked the water from his eyes. He pushed forward again, relaxed as far as he dared, let the world narrow to just the quiet crooning of Ned’s voice and the taste of him, the feel of him, the heat of him.

“That’s it.” Ned tucked a strand of loose hair behind Zeus’s ear. “Just like that. Take your time.”

Zeus stopped where he was, moved his tongue in an experimental circle, and was rewarded by a desperate little sound. He sucked gently, withdrew an inch with an obscene smacking of flesh and saliva, and pressed forward again. His nose buried itself in Ned’s pubic hair and the man groaned, falling back, hips pressing upwards frantically. The taste of him was all Zeus could ever remember tasting. His mouth and throat were so full it seemed he would never truly breathe.

He drew back, and swallowed him again.

Ned thrust into his mouth, shallow and involuntary, as Zeus worked, patient and methodical, learning as he went. In and out, tongue and teeth, the harsh panting of his breathing through his nose, the fluttering of his throat as he fought not to choke…and every time he got it right, found a place of pleasure or a movement that worked, he was rewarded with a barely-smothered moan and a tightening of that hand in his hair.

Zeus concentrated, and increased the pace. He worked as he had never worked before: to give pleasure, to be selfless in the act of love. He forced Ned’s cock as far down his throat as it would go. The boy mewled in surprise, hips bucking, and pulled his hair.

Zeus was hard – so hard it ought to have been all he could think about, but all he was truly aware of was the taste in his mouth, the feeling, the delicacy and the power of his position.

“Zeus!” Ned tugged frantically at his hair. “Zeus, you should – Zeus, I –!”

He came, cock throbbing, cum spilling out into Zeus’s mouth. It tasted worse than he had imagined but he swallowed it down, gave service as service had been given, kept working until the pulsing had ceased and Ned’s cries were reduced almost to sobs. Then, at last, he drew back, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He felt weak and shaky. His throat hurt. Ned half-lay on the bed, propped up on his elbows, breathing fast.

“Zeus…” His voice cracked.

Somebody cleared their throat. “My lord Zeus?”

Zeus, to his eternal shame, fell over backwards. He sat down sharply on the floor and stared, dumbfounded, at the slim man leaning up against the wall, watching him with an expression on his face that might have been disgust or might have been admiration.

“Hermes…” Zeus scrambled to his feet, wiping his mouth frantically, and planted his feet, trying to look as though his nakedness was the nakedness of a god and not the suddenly deeply private nakedness of a man.

“I’m sorry to disturb, my lord.” Hermes’s eyes raked across Ned with a frankness that Zeus disliked. “I didn’t realise you were busy.”

Ned pushed himself upright, drawing his legs in close. He glared at Hermes, his whole body flushed red. “Who the hell are you?”

“I?” Hermes raised an eyebrow. “I am Hermes, God of Travellers. We’ve met before, Edward Varn.”

Ned, to Zeus’s honest surprise, paled. “What is going on?”

“Did he not tell you?” Hermes rolled his eyes in Zeus’s direction. “Well, I don’t suppose it’s important. We have been able to come to an arrangement, my lord – you can be restored.”

“Thank you.” Why was it that he felt so uncertain? What was it that was making him wish Hermes a million miles away? Was it just that somebody had seen him so reduced, doing what no ruler should ever do? “You may go now.”

Hermes had the audacity to laugh. “Oh, are you busy? It looked as though you were just finishing up.”

“Fuck off.” Ned wrapped his arms tightly around himself. “Get out of my apartment.”

“How dare you speak to me that way?” Hermes’s voice dropped half an octave. “You who begged for my help?”

“What?” Zeus looked sharply at Ned. “What’s he talking about?”

“I don’t know. Get out. Both of you, get out!”

Hermes extended one hand and the world was silver. Zeus had never wondered what a transformation looked like to mortal eyes; now he knew anyway. Hermes stood there, no longer clad in jeans but glowing like a god, sandals and helmet in place, staff in his hand.

“Do you still doubt me?” His voice seemed to be two at once, in harmony with itself. “Do you think you don’t know me?”

“Hermes,” Zeus warned.

“My lord…” Ned’s voice cracked. “You weren’t real. You were never real.”

“You worshipped me. You asked for my help. Do you think I didn’t keep an eye on you?”

“I was sixteen! You weren’t even real! It wasn’t serious!”

“Do you honestly think there’s an unserious way to worship a god?”

“Enough!” Zeus snapped. “That’s enough.”

The world was silver again and Hermes stood, once more, looking like a mortal man. If it weren’t for the way the background seemed to distort itself around him, perfectly solid walls becoming the cardboard scenery of a cheaply-run play, you could almost take him for human.

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound it. “Didn’t mean to get carried away. Anyway, what I was saying was, you should be restored in a minute or two.”

“Get out.” Ned’s voice trembled. “Get out of my apartment. Both of you! Go on! Leave! Go away!”

“Ned,” Zeus began.

“Go away! Get away from me!”

“Ned!” Zeus grabbed his flailing hands. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh, he’s always like this,” Hermes said lightly. “Erratic. But he’s pretty, don’t you think? I thought you’d enjoy him.”

Ned stilled as though he had met a gorgon’s gaze. Something in Zeus’s heart seemed to detach and plummet, straight down through the soles of his feet.

“What did you say?”

“I thought you’d enjoy him. You did, didn’t you?” Hermes said impatiently. “I thought you might need some company to get through all of this and this kid was around so…”

“You messed with my mind?” Ned jerked away from Zeus as though he had been burned. “You _made_ me….”

“Don’t be so dramatic. I just made sure you were in the right place at the right time. You’re easy to manipulate – you don’t even know what you want yourself.” Hermes tapped his foot on the ground as though he couldn’t wait to be off. “Anyway, none of this is important. Godly restoration any second now. I’ll see you later, my lord.”

He was gone all at once, in the same shimmering radiance with which he had arrived. Ned jumped to his feet, grabbing a sheet and wrapping it tightly around himself.

“Get out of my apartment.”

“Ned, we need to –”

“Get out!”

And that’s when it happened, all at once, like waking up after a long sleep. Power rushed in, filled his veins, suffused the world with light. It felt like a key change in the soul. All those terrible mortal concepts, like hunger and pain, vanished. The ache in his throat was gone. The roiling in his stomach from a breakfast of cum was gone. The world turned to liquid, soft and malleable. It went vague around the edges. And the gravity – yes, the gravity was gone too. He was heavy no longer.

Ned shrank away from him, pressed himself into the corner of the room as far as he could go. Zeus looked at him with godly eyes and saw…something else. He was beautiful, it was true, but it was mortal beauty all over again, polished and sweet, so imprecise. The smell of the room, its busyness, its untidiness, was gone. The chaos of Ned’s rumpled hair did nothing to him. The desperate tug of heat in his groin vanished. He was flesh no longer – and flesh looked different to him.

“It’s alright.” Zeus reached out a hand. “Come here.”

“Get away,” Ned whispered. “What did you do to me? Get away from me!”

It would be so easy to compel him. Zeus could see what Hermes had meant now. Ned would be so easy to manipulate. One word in the right voice and he would be meek as a lamb. No need for this conversation. No need for any difficulty. One word and he would spread his legs again, lie back again, be open and ready and…and the memory was there, clear and precise, of Ned in all his mortal glory, half-smiling, showing Zeus what a condom was for with a tenderness that was entirely unnecessary.

Zeus choked down the impulse. Not this one. Not this time.

“Ned. I never meant any harm.”

“You manipulated me. You got inside my _head_.”

“No.” Zeus took a deep breath, which was entirely unnecessary without lungs and felt like nothing at all. “No, I didn’t. I was mortal. I can explain. And Hermes didn’t…nobody made you. Nobody made you do anything. He just encouraged –”

“Every word you say might be messing with me all over again.”

That was annoyingly hard to argue with.

“I wouldn’t. Believe me, I wouldn’t. Not you.”

“But others?”

“What?”

“Others,” Ned said impatiently. “How many others? Inside their heads, making them do what you want? How many times did you mess with their bodies, make them perfect for you? Mess with their minds so they’d be willing?”

The answer was: too many times. Too many times to even count. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t understood. He had never been mortal and if you’ve never been mortal, it is impossible to understand the incredible fragility of the body, of the soul, of the self. But that was an excuse. He had never asked.

“I could give you everything.” Zeus stepped forward slowly, like he was approaching a snared rabbit. “Everything, Ned.”

Very gently, he cupped that pretty face in his hand. It didn’t feel the same – not flesh on flesh, not skin on skin – but it was good. He wanted it still.

“I could make you a prince. You were born for something more than this…this damp apartment and the cheapest coffee money can buy. I could give you pleasure like you’ve never known it. I could give you riches. Knowledge. Immortality. Anything.”

“I don’t want it.” Ned’s voice trembled even as he failed to pull away. “Live like Ganymede? As a servant and a toy? Or die like any of the others from the stories?”

“I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”

“Your wife wouldn’t like it.”

“She’s used to it after all this time.” Zeus ran his thumb over the boy’s plump lower lip. “You’re perfect, Ned – so perfect. I would give you the world.”

Ned’s lips parted and Zeus slipped a finger inside. Ned’s eyes fluttered closed as he sucked on it, wrapped his tongue around it. Zeus leaned in, pressed him securely against the wall. With his free hand, he gently tugged the sheet from Ned’s grip and let it flutter to the floor. He withdrew his finger, catching it on Ned’s teeth but he didn’t even feel it – they were so blunt, so useless. He stroked the young man’s nipple, leaving trails of saliva across his chest. Ned moaned uselessly.

The kiss was heady as poppy seeds, dizzying, but it was not like it had been before. There was no taste, only heat and power, only the desire to take and claim and own. Ned was so fragile against him, his mouth open to the attack, his nipple hardening to a peak beneath Zeus’s rough fingers. Zeus could hear the frantic beating of his heart but he couldn’t feel the flutter of his pulse, not anymore.

“Mine.” Zeus drew back. “You see? I can make you feel so good. I can do so much for you.”

“Please…” Ned gasped the word out like he was fighting it.

“What is it?” Zeus pressed closer. “What do you need?”

“Please…don’t. Stop. _Please_.”

The shock of it all was that Zeus felt it. He felt the words in the gut he didn’t have. He stopped, released him. Ned stood naked, breathing hard, pressed against the wall like it was the only thing holding him up. He blinked rapidly, a few stray tears escaping.

“You used me.”

“No.” But that wasn’t strictly true, was it? “Not on purpose. I didn’t know what Hermes…I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“I can’t.” It was practically a wail. “Go away. Please, my lord. Go away. Leave me alone.”

“It’s alright,” Zeus soothed. “It’s going to be alright. I’ll make sure of it. What is it you want most? Just tell me and it’s yours.”

Ned lifted his gaze to his and Zeus didn’t feel it. He knew, and the part of him that was holding the mortal memories knew best of all, that it should have pierced him to the core, should have cut him to the quick. But he felt nothing. It was just a mortal, looking at him.

“I want to get my PHD,” he choked out. “And I want to get it for myself, without you cheating. I want not to be alone, and I want that to mean something, actually mean something, not just to be used by you. I want to know that my thoughts are _mine_. And I want you to go away. Go away and don’t come back.”

“You don’t mean that. That’s not what you really want.”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

And there it was, the ultimatum, the end of the road. This was the time to give up on the human endeavour. He should just speak and take what he wanted. Ned would forget all about it in an instant. He could have him any way he desired. Or else he could punish him, torture him for his arrogance in refusing such a generous offer, make him hurt for the rest of his life for making such a terrible mistake.

But there it was again, a curse that Zeus could not shake off, the memory of being mortal.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…this. I didn’t mean any of this.”

Ned stared fixedly at the floor. “Please.”

Zeus nodded slowly, though every fibre of his being fought against it. “I’m leaving. I won’t…nobody will bother you, I… Goodbye. Thank you for last night.”

Ned nodded tautly, still not meeting his gaze. Zeus let the world slip out of focus before he could lose his resolve, and he was gone. The quicksilver universe poured past him and Olympus resolved. This was home, the world that made sense, the simple, laughably easy world of his own devising. Ganymede was waiting for him, so beautiful, so golden. He grinned and ran to Zeus’s arms as he materialised.

Zeus fended him off. He laughed and the sound was unnatural to his ears, too jovial, too booming. It seemed to be coming from somebody else’s throat. He looked into Ganymede’s bright ever-young eyes and felt somehow sick.

Mortality had got a hold on him stronger than he had known. With any luck it would wear off soon. It would have too. He couldn’t live like this, understanding the vulnerability of humankind. He couldn’t bear it.

“We’ve missed you, my lord.” Ganymede held out a glass of wine. “Welcome home.”

Zeus grinned broadly and willed guilt far away. “I’ve missed you too, my pretty one.”


End file.
